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The Past, Present and Future of the Internet




By:
Jong-Keun An
Gregory Borrelli
Tara Daum
Craig LaPage





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The Internet is an interconnection of many smaller networks. It is a network of networks in a sense. Many people think of the Internet simply as the World Wide Web. This however is not correct. The World Wide Web is only a small part of the Internet. In the following discussion we will try to explain exactly what the Internet is, how it has evolved and what we can expect to see in the future.

The Past
  1. ARPANet
    • In 1969, a group of Department of Defense researchers working for the Advanced Research Projects Agency linked computers at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, the University of Utah, and the University of California at Santa Barbara to create the network. The message, "Are you receiving this?" was successfully sent from Boutler Hall at UCLA across the network to the other computers. The non-centralized networked was born and dubbed ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).


  2. Packet Switching
    • Data is sent in individual packets. Each packet is forward from switch , eventually reaching its destination. Each switching node has a small amount of buffer space to temporarily hold packets. If the out-going line is busy,
    • Advantages:
      • packet switching uses resources more efficiently
      • very little set-up, or tear-down time
      • it is more flexible
    • Disadvantages:
      • no guarantee in delay
      • algorithms are more complicated
      • difficult to bill customers


  3. Development of Applications
    • E-mail
      • Electronic mail. One of the earliest standard Internet protocols which enables people with different computers and operating systems to communicate with each other. E-mail allows one-to-one or one-to-many mailings. Mail is received and held by a mail server within an organization or by an Internet service provider until the addressee logs on to collect the mail. The Internet e-mail standards include no provision for authenticating the sender.
    • Database
      • Any collection of data, or information, that is specially organized for rapid search and retrieval by a computer. Databases are structured to facilitate the storage, retrieval, modification, and deletion of data in conjunction with various data-processing operations. Databases can be stored on magnetic disk or tape, optical disk, or some other secondary storage device. A database consists of a file or a set of files. The information in these files may be broken down into records, each of which consists of one or more fields. Fields are the basic units of data storage, and each field typically contains information pertaining to one aspect or attribute of the entity described by the database. Using keywords and various sorting commands, users can rapidly search, rearrange, group, and select the fields in many records to retrieve or create reports on particular aggregates of data.


  4. Protocols
    • TCP/IP
      • Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The protocols that are the basis for transmitting and routing data packets on the Internet. The Internet Protocol is the one thing that all current Internet sites have in common. The basic TCP/IP model has five layers of interaction:
      • Physical or Data Transport Layer. This most basic layer moves data over cables based on the physical address of each Network Interface Card (NIC). The most common types are ethernet and token ring.
      • Data Link Layer. This layer frames the packets of data that are sent through the network. PPP, frame relay, and X.25 operate at this layer. Bridges connect local networks at this layer.
      • Network or Internet Protocol Layer. This layer puts an Internet Protocol wrapper around the data with source and destination addresses in its header. Routers, which connect networks together, operate at this layer.
      • Transport Layer. This layer governs the setting of suitable packet sizes, segmenting and reassembling data, detection of errors, and flow control.
      • Application Layer. This layer provides for standard interfaces for such functions as message handling and file transfer and remote login. It allows, for example, for different e-mail programs to be used, as long as they conform to the standard interface. This layer in TCP/IP corresponds to the session, presentation, and application layers in the OSI model.
    • HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)
      • WWW (World Wide Web) was invented at CERN, an institute for particle physics situated in Switzerland. Originally, WWW was developed only for high energy physics(for world-wide communication).
    • The father of WWW-Tim Berners, Lee
      • He was the driving force behind the development of the WWW. He wrote the first WWW client and the first WWW server and defined standards such as URL, HTML and HTTP while working at CERN.
    • FTP
      • File Transfer Protocol. The Internet protocol that permits you to transfer files between your system and another system. You can use its command language from a shell account or various programs with SLP or PPP accounts that simplify the process.
    • TELNET
      • Telnet is a protocol that lets you log in to a remote computer and use programs and data that the remote owner has made available, just as if it were your local computer.




The Present
  1. E-Commerce:
    • Provides the capability of buying and selling products and information over the Internet through various online services.
    • Earlier forms of E-Commerce:
      • EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) handling purchase transactions on private networks.
      • EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) transferring funds over private networks.
      • POS & ATM (Point of Sale & Automatic Teller Machines) Basically works like electronic fund transfers.
    • More recent forms of E-Commerce:
      • On-line hotel and airline ticket reservations
      • Catalog companies (Computer hardware and software)
    • E-Commerce is growing rapidly:
      • 1994, $240 million of consumer spending online
      • 1996, $993.4 million of consumer spending online
      • 1999, $7.8 billion of consumer spending online
      • Projections for online spending for the year 2002 range from $300 billion to $1.5 trillion
    • The Internet is the "backbone" for E-Commerce:
      • Cross Platform compatibility – People using different types of computer systems can access the same applications over the Internet.
      • Ease of use – The World Wide Web provides an easy to use user interface at a minimal cost.
      • Low startup cost for business – The cost for a company to start an Internet based company is minimal.
    • Advantages of E-Commerce:
      • An E-commerce business can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
      • New forms of business are possible. One cal sell information or software and not require any inventory. The consumer can purchase a piece of software and download it directly form the Internet.
      • The entire business process can be done electronically. Advertising, ordering, processing, etc. No paper documents are necessary.
      • New forms of payment are possible. Electronic checks, digital cash, microcash.


  2. Internet Security:
    • As the amount of people using the Internet increases so does the threat of our personal information being taken by unauthorized people. As soon as you connect a computer to the Internet you’ve opened a window for others to access your personal data through.
    • Different Security issues:
      • Confidential, personal, or sensitive data can be stolen from your personal computer or server and used for malicious activities.
      • Confidential, personal or sensitive data can be intercepted while being transmitted over the Internet and used for malicious activities.
      • Viruses can be downloaded to your system and corrupt or erase your data.
      • Viruses know as Trojan Horses can be downloaded to your machine and allow others to use your computer to attack another personas computer or network.
      • Denial of Service attacks on servers – using Trojan Houses people can create many instantaneous requests to a single server thus overloading it and bringing it down.
    • Ways of dealing with security issues:
      • Individuals can install virus protection software on their computers to detect and delete "dangerous" files that may contain viruses.
      • Network administrators can install firewalls and or proxy servers to protect their local, internal network or Intranet from being accessed by outside users over the Internet.


  3. Copyright Issues:
    • Part of Internet security is dealing with how we can control the distribution of copyrighted materials. The inter is a great way to distribute different forms of our work weather it be written works, Programs we have created, or music we have produced.
    • Napster.com, MP3.com, etc.:
      • Companies such as Napster have made it extremely easy for anyone with an Internet connection to search and download virtually any song you can think of. Napster is basically a link between different people who are willing to share songs in MP3 format with other users. Some people in the music industry think this is a wonderful thing, enabling people to get their music heard by millions of people across the world. But others feel that their music is being stolen from them. They feel they are loosing lots of money in record sales because people are able to download their music freely from the Internet. There are currently lawsuits pending but no legislation is in place to regulate these things as of now.
      • Along the same lines, there is much software that is being distributed illegally. There are hacked versions of almost any type of software or computer game readily available if you look hard enough. Battling the piracy of software has been a concern for many companies over the years, but unfortunately it is very difficult to do.


  4. Search Engines:

  5. Recent developments to the WWW:
    • As the processing power of computers rises and the speed of peoples internet connection increases, web site developers are able to incorporate much more graphical and visually appealing effects into their sites. Software such as Macromedia Flash has made it relatively easy for designers to incorporate stunning animations into their web sites that download quickly and run on various computer platforms.
    • Java and visual basic script have made it easy for designers to create dynamic HTML pages. This allows the user to interact with the web page and create a more unique web experience depending on the users choices. This makes browsing the web a much more entertaining experience that when it was simply page after page of boring text documents.






The Future
  1. Search Engines
    • With the Internet such an integral part of our lives the future will indubitably bring new and improved search engines. The majority of students today, when faced with the task of gathering information on any given topic, wastes no time and head strait for the net. The only problem is how does one get the information they want. Lets say you want information on the American Eagle. Now you don’t want to waste your time so you go to the latest greatest search engine, like Google.

      Well why is it that the first thing that comes up is a company trying to sell clothes over the Internet. So here you are try to write a paper on the national bird and what do you end up doing, shopping for your fall wardrobe. Not only that but out of the whole search it only produced two sights that said anything about the bird at all. Ok new topic lets say you are a grade school kid and you just wrote a paper on the family dog. You want to spice it up with a picture. You head to the net and search for dog pictures. Unfortunately because you are in grade school you aren’t aware that you just broke the first net research rule. Never ask for pictures. This time you were lucky your first seven hits are legitimate dog pictures but if you keep going you get a crash course in beastiality at ten years old.

      The problem that we all seem to have is stupidity. Your search engine is just plain stupid. It is not trying to understand your request it is merely looking for the words you gave it in possible web pages. One company is doing its best to fix all that. Ask Jeeves is a new search engine that tries to use the latest in Natural Language Processing to take your questions in English and find the most relevant web sights. The difference is that instead of giving the search engine words you type a question. So when I tell Jeeves "I want to know about the American Eagle," I get two hits for companies, one for cars, one for the United States of America, and four for the actual bird. That’s a marked improvement over the two pertinent sites we got from Google and the 8 non-relevant ones.

      Ok so know its little Bobby’s turn to search for his dog pictures. So he asks Jeeves "Where can I find pictures of dogs." You know little Bobby didn’t get one porn sight, not even one.

      Is Ask Jeeves the answer to all our prayers? Not even close. Some people find the character of Jeeves to be annoying. A lot of people prefer the "What do you want to know" look of Google. The point here is clear though. With the constant development in the area of artificial intelligence the days of "Computer what is the weight of the average human brain?" are not far off. There will come a day when vast amounts of information will be stored in knowledge bases. When you ask a question with a set answer the search engine will merely spit out the answer and not some porn sights you might find interesting.



  2. Wireless Internet
    • It wasn’t long ago when cellular and digital phones hit the market with force. Now you can’t even go to the Opera without hearing the phone wring. So now that we all have these neat new phones what do they start offering but the Internet through the phone. Now I don’t have to wait till I get home to find out if I got that e-mail, or who one the big game, I can check in the car. The next question many people might have is what is next. Well wearable computers of course. Oh sure a phone with the internet is great but what if you need a nice full screen that you can play video games on. In cases like this most people go out and buy a lab top, but is that really portable enough. What we need is a computer that is so portable you can wear it. We could have the hard ware on a belt or sewn into a torso harness of sorts. We’ll need those neat new eyepieces that project an image right onto your eye for a monitor. Next some voice activation software for control. All you need now is a 3D mouse and you can play Quake while you are sitting on the toilette. Well that may all seem a little ways off but in fact all of the things just mention exist and are already being used today by some of the more industrious of the computer world.


  3. Internet 2
    • The Internet 2 was designed to help bring to more advanced uses to the internet. At the time the article, "Whatever happened to the Internet 2" was written, one-hundred and fifty U.S. college campuses were connected. There are two main differences between the Internet and Internet 2. Internet 2 uses a much broader bandwidth and is also routed through 30 hubs that are known as "gigapops."
    • The main infrastructure of Internet 2 is a "common bearer service." A common bearer service is a basic information transport interface for wide area communications. This is similar to the Layer 3 in the ISO network model. The Internet 2 uses the IP version 6. The common Internet uses the IP version 4. Internet 2 is "backwards" compatible with the common Internet. What this means is that a user can use Internet 2 and the common Internet as well.
    • A gigapop stands for "gigabit capacity point of presence. It is a high capacity, state-of –the-art interconnection point where Internet 2 participants may exchange advanced services traffic with other Internet 2 participants. They also act as "high- tech traffic cops" on fiber optic lines. They also allow schools to network with other schools to share a lot of data quickly.
    • There are many things that the Internet 2 is used for. For instance, running virtual laboratories in real time. Also, high-resolution video for distance learning. Next, 5 universities can see full motion video images from a telescope in Arizona and steer it around the cosmos at the same time.


  4. How the Internet will be integrated in our lives in the future.
    • The future holds infinite possibilities. Science fiction as always gives us a glimpse into possible science fact of the not too distant future. Take the show SeaQuest DSV. On this show they have large monitors that serve as computer, television and video telephone screens. This is a very real possibility in the near future. We have reached a point in our history where there is more data traffic, then there is phone conversations and television channels. The huge advances in data transfer technology spured by the growing need have made it possible for us to very soon see one line coming into the house. This line would carry your cable TV, your telephone line, and your Internet all in one. With all of this information coming in the same line all into your PC, people will be able to replace their VCR and answering machine with a bigger hard drive and some new software. The Internet can become our way of doing almost everything. With all the stores online, including grocery stores, we could just ask the computer to pop up our favorite store and get groceries delivered to our house. In fact, the Internet could be come so useful that you could possibly never leave your house. In fact, Microsoft got 4 volunteers to spend 100 hours in a room to rely on the Internet to feed, clothe, communicate and find entertainment. They did survive for the 100 hours and had a good time doing so.
    • All in all, the Internet and the Internet 2 offer worlds of possibilities on how the web will be in the future. Someday, the web could be one of the most important thing in our lives.